Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse (IPVA) is a global public health problem with significant physical and mental health consequences for all those affected as well as financial and resource implications for society. The majority of IPVA research is ‘unidirectional’, meaning that it focuses on either IPVA use (i.e., perpetration) or experience (i.e., victimization) separately. However, bidirectional IPVA, either psychological or multiforme, often emerges as a common pattern when IPVA use and experience data are examined together.
There has been limited research into IPVA by military personnel and veterans in the UK to date and this has been unidirectional in nature. Research from the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) has demonstrated that IPVA use and experience is significantly higher among men in the UK military compared to men in the general population. While this data highlighted that a significant proportion of the violence reported was in fact bidirectional, underscoring the importance of examining IPVA use and experience concurrently within research and clinical samples, the study was not able to explore differences in patterns of IPVA and risk factors among males and females. We know from IPVA research among veterans in the US that race, ethnicity, employment status, children in the household, marital status, child abuse or witnessing family violence, lifetime physical assault, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and binge drinking are important risk factors but their importance varies depending on the pattern of IPVA (e.g, no to low IPVA, bidirectional psychological IPVA, bidirectional multiforme IPVA).
The aims of this study are to improve knowledge of the prevalence of and risk factors for different patterns of IPVA, as well as improve understanding of the pathways to different patterns of IPVA among UK veterans. Using data and recruitment from a UK cohort study that has assessed the health and wellbeing of UK Armed Forces who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, this project will use both pre-existing questionnaire data and newly collected interview data from UK veterans. The project will work with military, NHS and third sector providers of support for military families and those who have experienced IPVA to share findings with the aim of improving education and training, screening and treatment strategies and ultimately relationship health and safety of veterans.
The proposed study will improve existing knowledge of patterns of and risk factors for IPVA among veterans and support the development of comprehensive screening and treatment strategies that include bidirectional IPVA in work to improve relationship health and safety among veterans. Given that veterans and their families currently make up almost 10% of the UK population and we know that IPVA is a much greater problem within this community than in the general population, there is an imperative to generate the evidence to drive improvements in detection, reduction and prevention. There is also an imperative to support policy and practice change with good research evidence, as evidenced by the Ministry of Defence’s commitment to tackling the issue of IPVA in their organisation through their recent domestic abuse strategy documents.
How to apply:
- Details on how to apply can be found in here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study-legacy/funding/patterns-intimate-partner-violence-abuse-uk-veterans
- Applicants should also complete the online LISS-DTP Diversity Monitoring Form
- The closing date for applications is 07/03/2025
- Interviews dates to be confirmed
- This project is offered as full-time or part-time
- For any queries contact deirdre.macmanus@kcl.ac.uk